In siman 6, the Chayei Adam discusses situations a) of one who makes a bracha on a fruit before the fruit was in front of them, b) if the fruit dropped between making the bracha and before eating from it, and c) when makes a bracha and then realizes their item was inedible. The Chayei Adam refers the learner to Klal 5, in which he discusses different rules of brachos in greater detail. Yesterday, we clarified case a); today we will discuss b).
In Klal 5 siman 7, the Chayei Adam writes that if the item upon which a bracha is being recited is dropped and lost between the making of the bracha and eating from it, one must repeat their bracha. Once the item is lost, the bracha is lost as well.
This psak of the Chayei Adam is a major machlokes rishonim. The opinion of the Chayei Adam stems from the rishonim who hold that the bracha primarily takes effect on the item held in one’s hand at the time of the bracha, and only once the bracha has taken effect on that specific item can it afterwards spread to other items (such as ones on the table, etc.). However, if the item was dropped, the bracha has nothing upon which it can take effect, so a new bracha must be recited. Other rishonim hold that as long as there were other items on the table, the bracha inherently includes all of those items, so even if the one being held drops, the bracha can take effect on one of the items on the table.
Due to the machlokes, the Mishnah Berurah writes that one should not make a new bracha in this situation.
Similarly, if one made a bracha with explicit intent to cover other items on the table, the Mishnah Berurah writes that these questions are based upon the same machlokes rishonim, and one should not make a new bracha due to the safeik.
Now the Chayei Adam discusses a case where the item that he made the bracha on is found to be inedible. He references Klal 5 siman 8. There the Chayei Adam discusses a situation where one makes a bracha on a talis, and one of the strings rips between the bracha and wearing, invalidating the talis, and writes that if there is another talis available, he should wear it instead. The Chayei Adam then equates this situation to case c) above, if there is an identical food item on the table, or even just an item of the same bracha, the Chayei Adam writes that one may have the bracha take effect upon it, and need not recite a new bracha. He explains that this is only true if the one making the bracha had explicit intent at the time of the bracha to include the items on the table, or the second talis. If he did not, then a new bracha will be required.
As we learned above, the Mishnah Berurah holds that one does not make a new bracha even in a case without explicit intent due to the machlokes rishonim.
Summary
- If the item upon which a bracha is being recited is dropped and lost between the making of the bracha and eating from it, or is discovered to be inedible, if there are other items on the table of the same bracha, one should not recite a new bracha on them, due to the machlokes rishonim.
